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Crimestoppers has voiced how the public's frustration over police failing to answer 101 calls has led to the crime reporting service being busier than ever.

The charity’s chief executive has said the demand for the service has continued to grow as many people want to do the right thing but “they know if they call us they will be answered pretty quickly” in comparison to making a 101 call.

Today the charity revealed a significant rise in information they were passing on to police, documenting a near 40 per cent increase in two years.

New figures show that between July 2017 and June 2018 the organisation, which is in its 30th year, passed on 152,000 reports to police across the UK - up six per cent on the previous year and 33 per cent on 2015/16.

The increase is thought to be partly due to an overall rise in offences recorded by police in England and Wales - as well as problems people have reaching the police non-emergency number, 101.

Crimestoppers also operates a simpler online reporting service.

Chief executive Mark Hallas said: “There is in some parts of the country an element of frustration with 101. They know if they call us they will be answered pretty quickly.

The service is completely anonymous to callers and online usersCredit:
PA

“Sometimes people will contact us because they are struggling to get through on 101.”

Some two-thirds of the calls and online messages the service receives aren’t passed on to police as staff are aware of the increasing demands on police forces nationally.

However the information contained in 144,000 reports passed on in 2016-17 led to 3,300 people being arrested and charged; 16,700 dealt with in other ways, such as informal warnings; £7.4m worth of drugs seized and property valued at £814,000 recovered.

Mr Hallas explained that surveys had found Crimestoppers was being used by hundreds of thousands of young people from black and minority ethnic (BME) backgrounds.

Almost half of those that contact the charity, both by phone and online, are under the age of 35, which can be attributed to youngsters trusting the anonymous service.

One in five people who contact Crimestoppers are from black or minority groups, something the charity puts down to communities feeling uncomfortable about speaking to the police.

Mr Hallas, a former brigadier whose 30-year military career included a spell in charge of Army intelligence, told BBC News: “Surveys we've carried out indicate that there's a hardcore of about 20 per cent of people who find it very difficult to talk to the police directly under any circumstances - but many of those people want to do the right thing and we provide the avenue to let them do that.”

The charity also revealed that around 60 per cent of the reports Crimestoppers sends to police forces - 92,000 cases - are drugs-related.